Chapter Five

"I'm not that kid anymore," Sam declared, as if there had been another conversation between the last thing he'd said—

'I've been alone. I thought I could make it work. But I can't . . . and I don't want to be there again.'

—and this thing. This emergence of an adult. That Dean had witnessed, but not entirely embraced. Because he'd always been the big brother. The eldest. Who knew more simply because he was eldest, and that never ended.

Until it did.

Sam looked at him, and waited. Dean, who had been the recipient of many a puppy-dog gaze, realized Sam wasn't working it, wasn't trying to manipulate. Sure, Sammy-the-kid had learned how to do it, when he wasn't tussling with Dad; and there were times he wanted/needed his big brother to do things for Sam-specific reasons (which Dean almost always ended up doing, sometimes to his great regret); and Sam the adult, Sam the hunter, had learned how to bend upon vulnerable victims the force of his empathy—succeeding because he was an empathetic, emo bitch—but this time, at this moment, in this place, after everything they'd been through in the eleven years since Dean had hauled his brother's lame ass out of the flames at Stanford, Sam meant exactly what he said. And the eyes, not the ayes, had it.

Just as they had in that bar, when Dean, all demon, had stared him down over a bottle of tequila, daring him to try to put sigil-etched cuffs upon flesh that was no longer human.

He wanted to forget what he'd said then. He could not. '—what is this, a Lifetime movie? Huh? With your puppy-dog eyes?'

Sam, not privy to the replay in Dean's head, continued unabated, "And I'm not going to let my big brother talk me out of what my gut is telling me."

Any more than Sam had, one-armed and much too thin, flinched away from the demon's threat. 'And what I'm gonna do to you, Sammy . . . well, that ain't gonna be mercy, either.'

Dean had come back changed, from those months. So had his brother.

"I know," Dean said. "I do know that, Sammy. But it's time I pulled on my big boy pants and finished this." And inwardly he winced; because that was the imagery Crowley had used. "Look, we don't have all the intel yet. I'm gonna do this, because I have to. I think it's the only way. But yeah, let's go back and talk to Crowley, suss out some more info."

Sam's eyes widened into rounded disbelief. "Like, he'll actually give us some? Tell us the truth? Are you totally, utterly, batshit crazy?"

At some point, his baby brother had grown a pair. Dean couldn't figure out whether to be pissed, or proud. "I kinda know the guy, Sam."

"He's a demon, not a guy."

"Yeah, well . . ."

"You don't know him, Dean."

And he said, not hiding the rawness of shame, "I ran with him for weeks, Sam. I howled at the moon right alongside him. Trust him?—hell, no. Know him? Better than I'd like. Better than anyone should." He dropped his gaze, unable to look longer into his brother's eyes. Saw his own hand gripping the angel blade, as it glinted in hallway lighting.

Yeah. He could end it. So could Sam. For all Crowley said they couldn't kill him, he was wrong. All Dean had to do was march into the dungeon, cross the iron circle, and plunge a blade fashioned of heaven into the demon's heart. Sam could do the same, with the blade Ruby had lifted from Alastair.

Sword of heaven; knife of hell.

Lucifer's vessel; Michael's.

It had all gone wrong for the archangels in Kansas, in Lawrence, where two boys had been born to John and Mary Winchester. Stull. The final showdown. The End of Days. Michael, who had once thrown down Lucifer into the fiery furnace, expected to do so again. But Dean had not after all consented, and he'd settled, had Michael, for a lesser vessel, because he had no other choice. Lucifer believed he'd gotten a leg up because his vessel was true.

But Sam was Sam, and he'd won. He'd won the long con.

Dean's turn. No matter what Crowley threw at him, Dean would win. Because if he was strong enough to house one of the firstborn of God, he could handle a piss-ant demon.

Even if it did call itself the King of Hell.

Dean smiled. A lightness overtook him, bubbled up in his soul. He lifted his head and met Sam's eyes again. "I can do this," he said. "Have a little faith, Sammy. Just a little, okay? This isn't a cemetery in Lawrence, is it? And I'm walking into the pit hosting a lesser demon, not leaping into it with Lucifer onboard."

He saw the shift in Sam's eyes. Saw the tic in his jaw, and the quieting of his face from anger into acceptance. "You jerk."

Dean merely grinned, twitched his brows, saying nothing.

Because Sammy knew the comeback.

Every instinct in his body screamed at Sam as he walked back into the dungeon behind his brother. But short of challenging him to a duel—pistols, knives, rifles, maybe even fists—Sam saw no way of winning this one. And even if he did challenge, and Dean accepted, and they fought themselves to an end result, Dean would win even if he lost.

A man with nothing to lose doesn't care. Doesn't invest. Doesn't lay everything on the line. A man with everything to lose, including the world, his brother, would never allow even that brother to deter him from putting himself at risk. Because risk wasn't a certainty of failure. It was a gamble—and sometimes gambles paid off.

'Can't you trust me to know what I'm doing? Can't you put some faith in me?'

Cell phone.

For some bizarre, absurd reason, with a rogue synapse firing wildly, the image of a cell phone popped into Sam's head. And memories of articles, books he'd read, about the great inventors. Alexander Graham Bell created and patented the telephone. Thomas Alva Edison, a man of disciplined science, planned to use a modified phone to contact the spirit world.

Hell, they were Winchesters. They'd been dealing with demons up close and personal since before Sam's birth; since before Dean's birth. Mary Campbell took a gamble on saving John Winchester, playing the long con to win. She'd won—John was back—but lost, because she died the night Azazel, old Yellow-Eyes himself, fed her youngest on his own blood.

Years later, her widower, still grieving fiercely with angry Winchester fervor, had played the long con, too, to save his eldest. Because only his eldest could save his youngest. Dean had been doing it all of his life since the age of four.

Now, Dean was in effect making himself into a telephone, a spirit phone, to transmit vital information. A Hand of God, employed just so against Amara, would destroy her. Dean had gone back in time to bring home a fragment of the Ark of the Covenant to do precisely that—Jesus, just give him the damn fedora and bullwhip, already!—and returned safely. He'd gone to hell acting as Crowley's errand boy to grab something the demon needed, and returned safely . . . was this any different? Risk, yes. Always. But success was the payoff. Had that first Hand of God been available for a second use, a third, Lucifer would be gone.

He'd leaped into the pit with Lucifer onboard, and stopped the apocalypse. Because Dean allowed it.

Who the hell am I to say no to my brother? He didn't say no to me.

Sam ranged up behind his brother as Dean paused on the outside of the iron circle, placed himself just off Dean's left. Crowley, seated quietly, looked up at them, assessed them, and a glint of triumph gleamed at the back of his eyes.

"Point to the elder," he said. He smiled, still assessing. "You are formidible, I'll give you that. Alpha males in your prime: big, strong, powerful young men with courage in abundance, bred of discipline, and loyalty, and utter dedication, with physical tools few have at their beck. You are infamous among my kind for good reason. Sam, the Boy King, Azazel's favorite; and Dean, Alastair's greatest pupil, briefly a Knight of Hell. It's no wonder books have been written about you. Maybe one of these days they'll give you . . . oh, I don't know—a TV series?" Again, the glint in his eyes. "Azazel was a fool. He discounted the oldest, focused solely on the youngest. He should have looked on you as a pair. As a pure partnership. The King of Hell and his Knight: Winchesters, Campbells. Bound on both sides by blood and bone." He made a gesture of resignation. "Ah well. Can't have everything, can we?"

"One and done," Dean said. "In and out. No side-trips. I go, I get it, I come back, you get the hell out of my head."

Crowley smirked. "I'm borrowing you, Dean, not highjacking you. It's not car theft if you loan me the keys, now, is it? Besides—you'll be in the driver's seat. I'll merely be . . . " He paused with theatrical timing, " . . . riding shotgun."

Dean twitched at that, even as Sam did. Crowley couldn't know that, could he? Or had he rifled through Sam's memories while muttering 'Poughkeepsie?'

'Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.'

Jesus. Chuck's damn books.

Sam forced words through a taught jaw. "You mentioned traps. And if you run into any demons? If Dean does?"

Crowley waved a hand. "Off-setting frequencies, Sam. They'll smell demon, and see what I make them see. Traps for me will sense Dean; traps for him will sense me. Or, well, sense a demon, not me per se." He waved a hand. "It's like that dress that was all over the Internet. What colors did you see? Blue and black? White and gold?"

Dean sounded both utterly baffled and supremely disgusted. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Assurances," Sam insisted, who'd believed the dress blue and black but would never admit to Dean that he knew anything about it. "Insurance."

Crowley sighed. "Moose, you know the drill. I will enter your brother as I've entered others, as I entered you . . . and the vessel stays behind. " A sweep of one hand indicated his body with a flourish. "You'll be in charge of it. That's your insurance. Because when I'm elsewhere, paying a strictly social call, what's left behind is empty. You could even burn the bones, and then where would I be?"

"These aren't your bones," Sam shot back. "We tried that once, remember? Me burning this body kills the host, not you. And in the meantime, you'll be in my brother."

Dean, with his back to Sam, grunted disgust. "Jesus, I hate the way that sounds."

Crowley ignored Dean and stared at Sam. "You ejected an angel, Sam. On your own. Yes, I had to wake you up to the fact that you were possessed, but I won't be actually possessing your brother. And if anyone can eject the King of Hell, it's Dean Winchester. So, assurance. Insurance." His gaze shifted to Dean. "Shall we, Squirrel? May I have this dance?"

Dean swung around, flipped the angel blade in his hand, held it out to his brother. His face was taut, but his eyes were steady. Certain. "Cut the tatt, Sammy."

~ tbc ~